Compression of digital video data is needed for many applications. Transmission over limited bandwidth channels such as direct broadcast satellite (DBS) and storage on optical media (i.e., CD, DVD, etc.) are typical examples. In order to achieve efficient compression, complex, computationally intensive processes are used for encoding (or compressing) and decoding (or decompressing) digital video signals. For example, even though MPEG-2 is known as a very efficient method for compressing video, more efficient compression standards such as H.264 are being developed.
A challenge in conventional digital video data compression techniques involves efficient motion estimation searches for a compression technique that uses variable block sizes. Conventional solutions employ a full search. However, the conventional solutions are computationally intensive, slow, and need expensive hardware to run.
It would be desirable to provide an efficient motion estimation search method for a compression technique that uses variable block sizes that may be implemented without expensive hardware.